6 Interesting Facts About Calories You May Not Know Before

Calories are often labeled bad by society. In fact, the human body needs calories to survive. Without calories, you will not have the energy to move. Gradually all the vital organs of the body will fail to function. In addition to playing an important role for human survival, here are some interesting facts about food calories and human body that you may never know before.

Food calories from each source of nutrients differ in value
There are three major sources of nutrients that are needed in large quantities by the body to produce calories, namely carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.

Well, each of these sources of nutrients turned out to have a different calorie content per gram. One gram of fat contains 9 calories. One gram of carbohydrate and one gram of protein contains 4 calories.

Fat contains more calories than other nutrients. That’s why, excessive fat intake will more easily accumulate calories in the body.

The label “0 calories” does not mean that there really is no calorie
In the guidelines for inclusion of nutritional food label information from the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency, a product that lists 0 (zero) calories does not mean that it does not contain any calories at all.

Food products containing less than 5 calories are common to be written as “total energy of 0 calories” in the nutritional information label on the packaging.

The body keeps burning calories even if you are no activity
We often assume that the body can only burn the excess calories by exercising. But when we do not move any, for example when sitting blank and during sleep at night, the body still working to burn calories.

Because the body still needs energy to perform various vital activities such as breathing, heart beat, blood flow, producing electrical signals to connect every nerve in the body, and all other body processes that do not need to be moved consciously.

The number of calories burned automatically is called the BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). The number of calories burned through BMR can be different for each person, depending on age, weight, sex, and body composition.

So even if you’re silent, your body will definitely not stop to keep you alive.

Reducing excessive caloric intake of food actually thwart your diet
Reported on the Everyday Health page, Kimberly Lummus, MS, RD a dietetician from the Austin Dietetic Association explained that when you deliberately cut your caloric intake on a large scale, the body will go into “starvation mode”.

The body reads the lack of food intake as a threat. As a result, the body will save energy by reducing the number of calories burned. The body will also prefer to use energy from the muscles so that muscle mass is down. As a result, your metabolism also slowed down. In this phase also the body will start to store fat to keep the energy reserves stored in the body.

This is why people who are on a calorie diet are overweight, their weight will go down a lot or not down.

The most effective way to lose weight is actually to regulate your calorie intake wisely. ideally, subtract your food calories while dieting just less than your initial calorie. Do not let yourself hunger for hunger.

The amount of calorie burning on exercise is not as accurate as you think
Sporting devices such as treadmills, stair-claimbers, elliptical electric bikes, fitness trackers, and other tools that show calorie burning rates are not as accurate as you think.

A 2010 study from the University of San Francisco states that the measurement of calorie burning on sports machines can be 20% much larger than it should be, and probably even more.

For example, if written on your sports machine has burned 200 calories it means you probably do not burn that much, but only about 160 calories.

Snacks are not really light calories
Snacking calories can exceed your primary food calories if you do not eat the nutritional information listed on the label, or eat too much.

Usually the portion of a snack meal about 200 calories or 10-15% of caloric needs a day. Unconsciously, because of its small shape, it seems addictive sometimes people do not realize that the snack is eaten beyond the required limit.

Snacks can be of any kind, like in-packed cakes, or traditional pastries that you find so much.